Microsoft unveils AI features for Office: “Copilot for your work”

Microsoft recently added OpenAI’s GPT artificial intelligence technology to the Bing search engine. NOW follow Office applications such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Applications will use the new, improved GPT-4, in a feature Microsoft calls “Copilot.” This name immediately sums up what the AI ​​will do: the user stays ahead, but will soon work faster and more efficiently, promises Microsoft.

Copilot is a new window in applications from Microsoft. Users enter a command, for example, “Create a proposal based on yesterday’s grades.” In Word, Copilot can also advance a text, which is then modified, completed and improved by the user. “Sometimes Copilot will get it right, other times it will make useful mistakes, but it will always help you move forward,” Microsoft said.

Win time

According to Microsoft, we spend 80% of our time on side tasks like answering emails. Copilot in Outlook can summarize emails and suggest pre-cooked replies. Users could read their emails faster and send a full response with just one click. In Teams, AI can automatically summarize meetings so users don’t really have to pay attention.

Users can also use AI to do things they normally can’t, like animate a presentation in PowerPoint. Jamie Teevan, chief scientist at Microsoft, acknowledges that the AI ​​system “can make mistakes and contain biases”. Each feature has been reviewed by experts in areas such as privacy and security, she says. “We’re going to make mistakes, but when they do, we’re going to fix them quickly,” Teevan said during the Copilot presentation.

Access only in the coming months

Most users won’t be able to access Copilot for the next few months. The feature is already being tested at 20 companies, including eight on the Fortune 500 list.

“This is the next big step for us – making it part of the tools everyone uses at work every day,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The new technology, he says, will help people create “great content, great documents, great PowerPoint presentations and art.”

Battle with Google

Google unveiled similar features for its Mail and Work apps earlier this week. Google and Microsoft have been in an AI race since the appearance of ChatGPT last November, developed with billions of investments from Microsoft.

Google only allows new AI features to be tested by a very small group of approved users. This also applies to the new AI Bard chatbot that Google is working on.

Google Bard’s announcement in early February coincided with Microsoft’s launch of the chatbot in Bing, which uses OpenAI’s GPT model. Until now, there was a waiting list for the Bing chatbot, but starting today, people who sign up get direct access.